Sitting with a cup of coffee. (coffee lovers)

[TeaChick]

Last year was my first with poultry and I had a problem and lost all my birds from someone letting them out of the coop and run. This year I bought birds from several sources and cackle hatchery was one I got a lot of birds from they kept getting cocci and I bleach their water buckets weekly and wash them out daily. It has cost me a small fortune in meds! I am not happy about it either and lost 10 out of 150. I have a lot of ventilation in my coops as well around the entire top at the eves and two windows and two doors that are only welded wire no shutters or anything. I don't like to use meds but here in Alabama it stays so humid I have to worm the birds at least once a year.

10 out of 150 isn't a bad attrition rate. I've lost over half the birds I've had since I started last March. (I've gotten 66 birds between buying from feed store, ordering from hatchery, receiving from friend, and hatch me and my friend; I've butchered 7 and had to dispatch 2 b/c I couldn't rehome them; I currently have 25 birds. Of the 66 that I've gotten, I've lost to illness or predation 32, so not over half, but right at half).
I'm not too far from you. Cocci, as @Alaskan said, is not something that ventilation helps. Yes, humidity is a major problem, especially as often as it becomes rain.
I hope your attrition rate stays low!!!

Yes, I've read others who live in humid climates mostly worm at least twice a year if they have to bring their birds into live in the coop full time in the winter and let them out to range in the summer, they worm at those transition times. Otherwise, I understand the general rule of thumb is about every three months if you have chickens that live in the same coop and run/range all year round.

I got birds from cackle, didn't have any problems, other than them wanting to live in the neighbors' yards and not my own!

Talk about free ranging!

In Finland, very little medication is used on poultry. Culling is the usual treatment for most things, which leads to more resistant specimens surviving. Some medicated feed is sold though, but we haven't used any. I think our two Sussexes suffered from a mild case of cocci, but they seemed to snap out of it. I think it delayed their development a bit though, they're closing in on twenty weeks now, and the rooster still hasn't started crowing. The pullet looks like she'll start laying in a few weeks.

Some American poultry farmers use culling as their main treatment.
We don't use medicated feed either. I need a rooster who gets that old and doesn't crow. (but I don't want cocci to do the job for me).
Hopefully, she will!!!

That would be right on time for her; it would be wonderful for her to mature before the cockerel starts crowing. =)

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: I don't know why I had so many problems this year with the chicks but it was terrible! I did not have any problems with the other birds I bought from other sources. I am not saying it was them I am just puzzled with the whole ordeal.

 

[TeaChick]

I don't know why I had so many problems this year with the chicks but it was terrible! I did not have any problems with the other birds I bought from other sources. I am not saying it was them I am just puzzled with the whole ordeal.

Chicks are more sensitive to illness (and smaller, so less able to fight illnesses) and easier targets for predators, so less likely to survive than full-grown animals in the same given month or year.

 

[Alaskan]

Oh, I asked my sister if she had issues..

She said:

Except for the one major mite or whatever it was infestation that all of the birds got dusted for, bugs have stayed at a very low ignorable level.

She said that every so often one gets diarrhea until it wastes away and finally dies, but that has never happened in multiples. She said the worst was three chickens over a two month period.

She lives where it is very hot and dry, but not desert, the Texas hill country.

 

[TeaChick]

Oh, I asked my sister if she had issues..

She said:

Except for the one major mite or whatever it was infestation that all of the birds got dusted for, bugs have stayed at a very low ignorable level.

She said that every so often one gets diarrhea until it wastes away and finally dies, but that has never happened in multiples. She said the worst was three chickens over a two month period.

She lives where it is very hot and dry, but not desert, the Texas hill country.

I need some of the dry part. =(
I have heat and humidity.

When I was a kid, some summers the temp would touch 100*, but not every summer and only one day or two, but never in a row either. The past few summers, we've had 100+ temps for several days at a time, etc. It's terrible!!! Combine that with the snow flurries of the Polar Vortex from this winter and this becomes a very expensive place to live (having to prepare for and care for chickens through "extreme" heat and "severe" cold.

 

[TeaChick]

But I'm super glad for you and her that you haven't had the attrition rate!!!

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: I kept them in brooders for the first two months and cleaned the feeders and waters daily and bleached everything including the brooders weekly but cleaned the brooders every couple days like I did all the others last year and never lost any to illness last year. So I really do not know what the problem was. I am just glad we are past it! My 2 month olds are also kept in grow out pens and not mixed with the older birds till they are abt. 4 months old.

 

[TeaChick]

I kept them in brooders for the first two months and cleaned the feeders and waters daily and bleached everything including the brooders weekly but cleaned the brooders every couple days like I did all the others last year and never lost any to illness last year. So I really do not know what the problem was. I am just glad we are past it! My 2 month olds are also kept in grow out pens and not mixed with the older birds till they are abt. 4 months old.

Wow! Yeah, I've had problems this year that I didn't have last year. I have basically the same setup as last year. I guess some years are like that.

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: Thanks I guess. I hope next year is better!

 

[TeaChick]

Thanks I guess. I hope next year is better!

YW! I hope so too!